India Justice Report 2025 Highlights Southern States’ Leadership, Persistent Systemic Challenges
Karnataka tops rankings among large and mid-sized states, but justice delivery remains marred by case backlogs, overcrowded prisons, and stark gender and caste disparities.
- The India Justice Report 2025 ranks Karnataka as the best-performing state in justice delivery, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu among large and mid-sized states.
- India’s justice system faces over 50 million pending court cases, with 33% judicial vacancies in high courts and 21% in district courts, leading to heavy workloads for judges.
- Prisons remain severely overcrowded, with a national occupancy rate of 131% and 76% of inmates being undertrials, highlighting delays in justice and lack of due process.
- Gender and caste disparities persist, with fewer than 1,000 women in senior police roles and Scheduled Castes and Tribes underrepresented across police and judiciary ranks.
- While progress has been made in areas like CCTV surveillance in police stations and video conferencing in prisons, the report calls for urgent, holistic reforms to address deep-rooted systemic deficiencies.
Financial Express 
Hindustan Times 
Telegraph India 
The Hindu 